Post for the Geological Society of London’s blog covering the antics of that li’l robot so far, and geological prospects!
Month: August 2012
Relocation, and a chance to try some open science-ing
Shortly, this blog will be moving to a new home within the European Geosciences Union blog network! Somehow, they get the idea that a blog with the url ‘fossilsandshit’ would be appropriate for their needs. Anyway, as part of this, the blog needs to become more focussed. That means no more miscellaneous rants, no more […]
Early Evolution of the Dinosaurs
Dinosaurs. What springs to mind when they’re mentioned? The colossal sauropods? Packs of feisty feathered fiends? Or huge herds of hadrosaurs, chomping their way across the plains of long lost worlds? Most, including myself, will automatically default to any one of these archetypal images when dinosaurs come up in conversation (what, you mean it’s not […]
Permanent, Full-Time Managerial Position. Lunch and Tube Travel as Salary.
There was quite a stir earlier this month when UCL advertised an unpaid internship, the full series of responses of can be found here. Now it’s happened again with BG Mag, but for an editorial/managerial position. The pay? Lunch and travel for Zones 1-3, for a permanent full-time position. Full details are here, and screenshotted below […]
Results show that you're clean, and also something about Twitter functionality
Twitter is awesome. Users tweet over 340 million times a day, and the information load coming through it, and the speed at which it comes from the real world, makes it incredibly addictive as a social media or microblogging tool. In terms of the functions it offers though, how much is really understood? Everyone knows […]
Springer Respond!
Recently, an article appeared in Naturwissenschaften, with the title ‘Deep Diving Dinosaurs’, with zero content about dinosaurs and being instead about their distant relatives, the ichthyosaurs. Naturally, being a miffed Brit, I decided to write a letter to the journal’s publisher, Springer. Here’s the mighty response from one of their Editorial Directors: Thank you Dr. […]
What does the 'Favourite' function mean on Twitter?
Recently, Sherry Nouraini created an intriguing poll regarding the ‘multiple personalities’ of favouriting a tweet on Twitter. From a personal viewpoint, I use it similarly to the ‘Like’ function on Twitter, although anecdotal evidence combined with this poll suggest a wide variety of different uses. However, the sample size for this previous study was quite […]
The Nutty Professor 2
Drug control is one of the more messy fields of integration of science and policy, and is certainly up there with climate change and the mechanics of Boris Johnson’s hair. The post from yesterday demonstrated how complex the science-policy interface can be, with respect to David Nutt’s dismissal from the Advisory Council on the Misuse […]
Nutts.
Cosy Science is a Café Scientifique style event held every now and then in London. August’s theme was on drug control policy, with Professor David Nutt, an infamous player in ongoing drug policy, giving a talk. The main points throughout the talk can be found storified here, with feedback from some users on Twitter. The […]